Calpe (Gibraltar) and its
connection with Boaz, the left hand pillar of Masonic Legend

Brethren, I am sure that most of you know
Calpe was the name given to the Rock of Gibraltar prior to the Moorish invasion
in 711 AD when the Berber General Tarik ibn Zeyad named his first acquisition on
the Iberian Peninsular gebel al Tarik, a name which with the passage of
time corrupted to the present form, Gibraltar. There are many Associations in
Gibraltar today bearing the name Calpe or Calpean and even our national emblem
bears the inscription Montis Insignia Calpe. It is therefore no surprise
that two Masonic Lodges have held meetings under the name Calpean (one of which
is the present Lodge of Friendship) and our own Calpe Lodge still proudly works
under this name. Few however realise that the name Calpe is brimming with
Masonic connections dating back to well before the construction of the first
Temple at Jerusalem. This Brethren is not a claim of fancy, but may well be
verified with historical facts.

To ancient mariners the Strait represented a
gateway, a rite of passage, a leap of faith from the natural to the supernatural
where safe coastal navigations led to the perils of the open ocean. To many it
was the point of no return. Yet the Straits were being successfully navigated by
Phoenician mariners who frequently crossed the supposedly perilous waters and
established colonies along either shore of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coast
such as Carteia, west of Gibraltar and even Cadiz which has recently celebrated
its three-thousandth birthday.

It was also the Phoenicians and not the
Romans who first called Gibraltar Calpe. In ancient Aramaic/Phoenician the
consonants in Cala meant hollow and Pietra meant stone, hence to them Calpe -
Gibraltar (and other similar places along the Mediterranean coast) was the
hollow stone or rock, probably a reference to the many caves they found here at
sea level as they sailed round the Rock. There are over 140 caves all over the
Rock of Gibraltar, some of which have been found to contain Phoenician
artefacts.[1]
The Phoenicians as a daring sea-faring race often used the Bay of Gibraltar (Carteia)
as temporary harbour before attempting to navigate the perilous straits into the
Atlantic as they headed to the tin rich lands of Western Europe known to the
Phoenicians as "Barra Tannica" or the land of Tin, from which the names Brittany
and consequently Britain originate. Tin being an important ingredient in the
making of bronze was a far superior material to copper and gave the Phoenicians
a crucial technological advantage. It was this jealously guarded trade secret
that gave Phoenicia complete control over the Mediterranean basin for over 1,000
years and gave the Kings of Tyre their overwhelmingly economic and military
superiority in the Middle East region.[2]
Only after an alliance with the King of Tyre were Solomon’s ships permitted to
participate in this profitable trade in the Mediterranean, and Jewish sailors
under instructions from Phoenician mariners, were taught how to bring from India
and Ethiopia the gold necessary to enrich the people and finance the
construction of the Temple.[3]

The Phoenicians therefore, naturally
associated the two rocky outcrops on either side of this narrow strait crossing
as of great mythical significance and identified them with the twin pillars
which were one of the main features of the Temple at Melqart in Tyre and later
of the Great Temple in Jerusalem. The etymology of the Biblical races suggests
that it was common for the tribes and nations to borrow or assimilate the
culture and religious practices of neighbouring or conquered people into their
own set of beliefs. Therefore it is no surprise that the Great Temple of
Jerusalem was heavily influenced by Phoenician and Egyptian architecture when
designing and building their first Temple. The Israelites themselves included
many references to twin Antediluvian Pillars in their own scriptures, in this
respect Enoch prophesized the flood that was destined to destroy the world and
in order to preserve Man’s knowledge of the Arts and Sciences he erected two
pillars, on which these Arts were engraved, one of brick and one
of stone, hoping that at least one would survive the catastrophe.[4]

The Bible
also includes many other references to such
pillars and identifies them specifically as the pillars of the earth. In Job 9:6
it says, "Who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble." The
LXX says, "Who shakes the earth under heaven from its foundations and its
pillars totter." Therefore the legend of Samson who brought down the
House of his enemies by pulling down the pair of pillars that served as supports
for the building was seen as an allusion to the power of these supporting
pillars and the catastrophe that would occur should they ever collapse as a
consequence of the displease of the Almighty.

Masonic references to these pillars are found in
Psalm 75:3 which says, "The earth and all its inhabitants are melting away; I
set firm its pillars" The LXX says, "I have strengthened its pillars." In I
Samuel 2:8 it says, "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s and he had set
the world upon them." The Hebrew word for pillar is yqxm. The root is
qx meaning "to melt" (BDB 1980, 848). Therefore, yqxm means, "a
molten like pillar." The pillars cast by the Master Craftsman himself Hiram
Abiff were therefore made of brass in allusion to the description of these
supernatural pillars in the scriptures. Only in I Samuel 14:5 are these pillars
specifically referred to as mountains. Probably the pillars of the earth are the
same thing as the foundations of the earth which were mountains.
In Masonic ritual this often misintepreted phrase ‘In strength I will establish
this mine House to stand firm forever’ does not refer to the supporting pillars
of the Great Temple (these pillars were free-standing in any case) but to the
supports of the Earth, without which the world would come to an end.

This reference to the pillars
being in fact mountains brings us back to our Rock of Gibraltar as the
foundation stone or pillar in which according to ancient tradition the world was
supported. The Greeks also described the Phoenician Calpe as one of the twin
pillars of Hercules and incorporated it into their own mythology. However on
this occasion the pillars were not destroyed in order to bring doom to the
inhabitants of the world as in the Jewish legend of Samson, but merely pushed to
either side, to allow Greek mariners access to explore the world beyond the
confines of the Mediterranean sailing into the Atlantic as had the Phoenicians
before them. It is important to note that this was only achieved once Greece,
who had been for many centuries restricted by the Phoenicians to the confines of
the Aegean Sea finally seized maritime control of the Mediterranean from
Phoenicia. In doing so they naturally acquired that nations hitherto trade
secrets and replaced their own allegory to the mythological pillars located at
the extreme west of the Mediterranean. The Romans having conquered Gaul (France)
were able to launch an invasion of Britain across the Channel and so never found
it necessary to sail past the Pillars in search of the “Barra Tannica” and so
regarded the seas beyond the straits as “Non Plus Ultra”, which literally means
nothing beyond. It is probably at this point that the secrets of the twin
pillars appear to have slipped from the minds of men and instead the popular
maritime myths propagated by the Phoenicians themselves describing the Pillars
as representing the limits of the known world and the abyss beyond became widely
accepted as fact for well over a thousand years

If Gibraltar was indeed one of
the mythical Phoenician Pillars we now turn our attention to the other pillar in
the equation, Jachim. Often Sidi Musa in the Atlas Mountains is referred to as
the other probable pillar because of its size and prominence in the North
African coast but this according to local historian William Serfaty is not so as
the latter appears to be far too high to fit in the mythological description of
the twin pillars and in any case the geographical position of both Gibraltar and
Ceuta, known to the Phoenicians as Septa would have appeared more symmetrically
aligned to our ancient seafarers than Sidi Musa.[5]
Further evidence which reinforces this hypothesis is recorded in the Bible which
identified the two pillars with the columns of cloud and of fire that led the
children of Israel out of Egypt. Calpe (Gibraltar) was thus represented as the
right hand or North pillar as the Levanter cloud that condenses over the Rock on
at least 150 days of the year identified it as the Silver Pillar of Smoke
described in the First Book of Kings, whilst Septa’s (Ceutas) low evergreen
bushes which flower yellow in January through to April, presented the impression
of the fiery pillar and so identified it with the South pillar.[6]
In Masonic ritual we are taught that the two pillars erected outside the Great
Temple of Jerusalem commemorated the miraculous pillars of fire and cloud that
helped Moses lead the Chosen people out of Egypt. These pillars are known to
Masons as Boaz (North Pillar) and Jachim (South Pillar).[7]
Again, our Masonic ritual describes these pillars as hollow so that they could
be used as archives to Freemasonry. While there
does not seem to be any scriptural or other support for the theory that
Solomon’s Pillars served as archives,[8]
they again appear to identify the North Pillar to the Phoenician Cala Pietra, or
hollow stone. Finally the fact that Gibraltar points to the magnetic North and
Ceuta towards the South further suggests that these were in fact the two pillars
referred to in the Bible. Therefore in almost every respect, both the Phoenician
and Biblical accounts of the twin pillars suggest that Gibraltar and Ceuta were
indeed the true representations of the legendary pillars placed outside their
temples, and that some of the significance of the features contained on these
pillars having been lost over time were replaced with new symbolism and
interpretation.

It was for these reasons then
that the area of the Strait was seen as a virtual representation of the entrance
to the mystical and mysterious ‘Sanctum Sanctorum’, resembling the Rock and the
promontory of Ceuta to the pillars cast by the Phoenician architect Hiram Abiff
for the Temple of Solomon. Acting as sentinels to the entrance of the inner
sanctum, where the Ark and the Devine Shekina resided.

Early Masonic initiation
ceremonies were apparently linked with the pillars, very likely also to
legitimize and to elevate the initiation to the highest possible level. There is
evidence to show that both pillars were used for the first degree ceremony and
it was only at a later stage that the ritual was split into the first and second
degree so far as the two pillars are concerned.[9]
In some Lodges the Pillars are placed in the West forming a kind of portal
through which the initiate passes on his admission to Freemasonry which is
obviously a drawback to our ancient traditions and thus associating the inside
of the Lodge room itself with the inner sanctum of the Temple of Solomon. In
this way it was only after having been entered through these Pillars that
the secrets of Freemasonry were actually entrusted to a Brother Initiate. There
are many examples of such ancient rituals even from the time of the Babylonians
depicting candidates undergoing such rituals between a pair of pillars and one
of the carvings at Rosslyn Chapel clearly shows a blindfolded figure and
he has a noose round his neck which is being held by a figure in the tunic of a
Knight Templar. The man has his feet in the posture that is still used today by
Masonic candidates. This is a very unusual position and does not occur in any
other carvings in Rosslyn. The ceremony is being carried out between two pillars
as it is in a Masonic Lodge.[10]
Therefore the pillars represented the esoteric knowledge that would be
communicated only to those invited to traverse the threshold and participate in
the mysteries of the Order whilst traditional myths and legends were handed down
to the masses instead. This obviously ties in very well with the representation
of the Pillars of Hercules and the esoteric and exoteric knowledge they too
imparted.

With the fall of the
Phoenician empire the physical link with Northern Pillar of Calpe was severed.
However, the esoteric knowledge survived, evolving with the passage of time but
retaining many of its original precepts and teachings. In 1704 another maritime
power took possession of the Rock and through it controlled the approaches of
the Straits once more. Through Gibraltar, Britain, the mythical “Barra Tannica”
was able to effectively establish an Empire spanning the four quarters of the
globe, just as the Phoenicians had done two thousand years earlier. In a final
twist of fate, Britain had also acquired Phoenicia’s ancient mysteries that had
developed through the ages and developed into its present form - modern
Freemasonry. In this way, Britain the recognized patron of Speculative
Freemasonry was once again reunited with its Northern Pillar and through its
strength established the foundations of our Order which has once again shed its
Light throughout the world, and long may it continue.

WBro. Keith Sheriff

[1] William Serfaty,
Thesis designed to provide a possible historical origin for the legend of
the Pillars of Hercules Mythology.